The Speedster and the Sponge
by Lara-Van
Summary: AU Post-S2. Peter is trying to reconnect with some of the friends he made in S1. When he gets involved Matt's investigation of a series of high-speed robberies, he discovers something that shakes his world... again. Matt/Audrey and Peter/Daphne-- ON HOLD
1. Restless

**Author's Note: Alright, I have a tendency to have ridiculously long, overdone A/N's, so I'm going to try and keep it concise. Just the basics. Or… y'know… not…**

**This is totally AU, first off. Nathan never made his unfortunate speech at the end of Powerless, and FuturePeter never came back to stop him. So Peter has returned to New York, and is living with his family (since his apartment got rented out while he was in Level Five) because all that drama never happened. And no Arthur Petrelli. That storyline was one of the lamest things I've ever seen, and although it probably could have been well-done… it wasn't. The formula, fine, that I'll include, but not Daddy Evil #1 returning from "the dead."**

**Second, the two primary pairings in this fic are, believe it or not, my official ships. The only reason I bring this up is because they're both kind of rare ships. Matt/Audrey hasn't been shipped much since HTSAEM, and as far as I know, I'm the original (and possibly **_**only**_**) Daphne/Peter shipper, but I'm trying really hard to convert as many people as possible. Hence this fic. I'm sure plenty of you are skeptical, but just give it a chance. I hope I do it justice.**

**Alright, I failed to make it a short A/N, but future ones will be shorter. I promise. One final note: This begins on April 3. Not terribly important, but you may want to know. Now read the story! **

--

_The dream was just a blur of colors, little else. He could make out the occasional image or sound, but everything was moving too quickly for him to process. He spotted a strange, twisting symbol that he thought he recognized from…somewhere… A flash of light and a scream reached him… Caitlin's scream._

_He saw Caitlin, being dragged away from him by the security team in that god-forsaken future they'd been to. He reached for her, trying to get back to her, but it was useless. He couldn't save her. But just as he was about to drop to his knees in despair, Caitlin's cool blue eyes met his, and her expression softened_. It's alright_, she seemed to tell him. If only he could forgive himself so easily…_

_And then, he caught a glimpse of a blur of red shooting past him. Distracted, he gave chase, trying to catch up to the person who was outdistancing him. Whoever it was, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, and he caught a glimpse of soulful brown eyes before…_

Petrelli Mansion

Peter sat up with a gasp. He glanced around him before remembering where he was- safe in his old bedroom at the family home. Early morning sunlight streamed past the blue curtains, and the sound of horns indicated that the usual traffic on the street below was already in full swing.

He rolled out of bed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. This was the third such dream he'd had in the week he'd been back in New York. Peter had tried everything he could think of to save Caitlin, but nothing had succeeded in getting him back to that future. As far as he could work out, that particular future must have somehow split off from the universe's timeline when he had returned to the past and altered events. Now there was no going back to save her. Caitlin was lost.

If Peter had still been lacking in memories, he would have been more bothered. When he'd been amnesiac, Caitlin had been the only thing keeping him grounded and sane. But he had other anchors now that his memory was restored. He still wanted to help her, try and save her, but he knew now that he didn't love her. And all his routes to helping her seemed blocked except for the most obvious one- keep the future a good one, in the hopes that it would keep her safe.

But no matter how much he told himself that, apparently his subconscious wasn't listening, because the dreams continued to plague him. Peter wondered if it might be that talent he had picked up somewhere of dreaming the future.

No, more likely it was just his restless mind trying to make sense of the sudden return to normalcy. For more than six months, his life had been embroiled in a ridiculous amount of intrigue and things that belonged in a science fiction movie. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to find himself back in his childhood home, as if none of it had happened. As if Kirby Plaza had never happened…

Peter shook that thought out of his head. It had all turned out fairly well, under the circumstances, and there was no use in dwelling on the past.

But that didn't change the fact that he was bored out of his skull. There was no cheerleader to save, no virus to destroy… Childish though it was, he wanted something to do. It was as if someone had suddenly hit the Slow Motion button on the remote control of his life. Peter cast his mind around, until suddenly he hit on an idea. He grinned widely as inspiration filled him.

Immediately animated by the prospect of- well, not really adventure, but something to fill his time at least- Peter dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt his mother had given him for Christmas two years previously. Then he raced downstairs so quickly that only liberal application of Nathan's power kept him from sprawling all the way down the stairs. "Nate! Nathan?" he called excitedly.

"In here!" Nathan's voice issued from the kitchen, and Peter hurried into the room.

Nathan was standing in front of the stove in his shirtsleeves, making omelets. "What're you doing, Nate?" Peter asked, surprised.

Nathan grinned. "Heidi's coming over for breakfast. We're trying to patch things up."

"That's really great, man," Peter said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. "Well then, I'll stay out of your way. Actually, I might be out of the way for awhile."

"What do you mean?"

Peter smiled regretfully. "I'm… Look, I don't have a job, and I'm not doing any good sitting around the house all day, bothering you and Mom. And I figure I have a lot of reconnecting to do. I was gone for almost five months, and people are probably wondering where the hell I've been, so…" He paused, trying to put this in a way that Nathan would understand. "I need something to do. Things have been so crazy, and I don't know that I can go back to the way things used to be, before all this started. I thought maybe I'd go and visit Claire, for starters. Unless you've called her, she doesn't even know I'm alive. And then I thought I'd go apologize to Hiro- I banged him up pretty bad last week. And then… I'll see where it goes from there."

Nathan placed his hands on his brother's shoulders, studying him. "Alright. Just… don't disappear of the face of the earth, okay? We just got you back."

The younger Petrelli grinned. "Don't worry. I'll keep in touch."

"Do you want to tell Mom, or should I?" Nathan asked.

Peter shrugged. "Be my guest. I kind of wanted to get under way as soon as possible, and Mom's at her bridge club, so… Hey, you said that Claire was in California now, right?"

"Costa Verde," Nathan confirmed.

"I've never been to Costa Verde."

At that moment, there was a knock on the front door and Heidi appeared in the entryway. Peter gave her a warm smile and headed back upstairs, tactfully removing himself from the presence of the reconciled couple.

Five minutes later, Peter had crammed the necessities into his messenger bag, and stood on the rooftop wearing his signature long khaki coat. He glanced around, making sure no one was looking, then leaped into the air. He hovered over the building for a moment, taking a last look at his childhood home, then streaked off. Within minutes, the airspace over New York was completely devoid of Petrellis.

--

Costa Verde

West Rosen executed an easy loop-the-loop across the sky. He wasn't sure where he was going; he was just enjoying the flight. Maybe later he'd go to Claire's house, if she was even still there. He hated the way they had left things, and wanted to make peace, at the very least. And it didn't help that he missed her so much it physically hurt.

As he was coming out of his loop, something slammed into him, hard, and he went pinwheeling through the sky. Before he could right his course he had dropped a good hundred feet, and wound up hovering, completely upside-down.

"What the _hell_?" he demanded, straightening up. He turned around, trying to see what had hit him. West felt his eyes widen involuntarily as he saw that he had collided with a man. A _flying_ man.

"Um... hi," said the man, clearly as shocked to see West as West was to see him. "I... sorry. I guess I ran into you. Teach me to watch where I'm going, huh?" He laughed self-consciously, and West smiled tentatively as he studied him. The older man seemed to be shorter than West- although it was harder to judge these things in the air- and had short hair, dark enough to be almost black. He looked vaguely familiar, though West couldn't quite place him. "Who are you?" the man asked.

West held out his hand politely. "I'm West Rosen."

The man took his hand, grinning crookedly. "Nice to meet you. My name's Peter. Peter Petrelli."

West recognized the name immediately. "You're Claire's uncle!" he exclaimed.

Peter looked overjoyed at the mention of her name. "You know Claire?" he gasped.

The teenager nodded. "Yeah. We... we were kind of dating for awhile. She moved to Cali a few months back and started at my school, and... I saw her cut her toe off." Peter nodded, chuckling slightly. "She mentioned you once. Never said much about you, but I found a picture in one of her photo albums and asked. I thought you were dead, though."

"No. I might've been, if it weren't for Claire... but that's a really long story," Peter said, clearly not willing to talk about it to a complete stranger. "Anyway, I haven't seen her in awhile and I thought I'd drop by to see her." Peter closed his eyes, focusing his hearing. He seemed to have picked up superhearing, along with a few abilities from Sylar on Kirby Plaza- probably one of the factors that had contributed to his meltdown. He tuned in to Claire's heartbeat, trying to pick it out from the many in Costa Verde. Just as he had narrowed in on what he thought was hers, a high-pitched scream that undeniably belonged to Claire Bennet ripped through the air, piercing his eardrums.

Peter clapped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the noise that ricocheted inside his head. He doubled over in midair. "Dammit," he hissed. When he was able to focus on anything beyond his sudden migraine, he looked up to see West looking very concerned. "It's Claire," he said. "She's in trouble."

"How do you know?" West asked, panic-stricken.

"Super-hearing," Peter responded in a strained voice. "She's screaming."

West shook his head. "What are we waiting for then?" he demanded. "Let's go!" He dropped like a stone toward the streets beneath them, Peter following close behind.

--

Paris

_Six months. 145 days, to be exact. That's how long she's been free. It's a bittersweet calculation._

Daphne Millbrook dropped her bag onto a chair, having just arrived back from her last delivery of the day. She threw herself backwards onto her brass bed, gazing into the midafternoon sun that streamed through the window in her tiny apartment in the art district. The light illuminated the delicate yellow color of the walls, giving the whole room a warm, summery glow. She closed her eyes contentedly, allowing the subtle heat from the sunlight to play across her closed eyelids

Her whole life, she'd wanted to visit the City of Lights, and now she_ lived_ here. She had steady work as a messenger, and a nice place to live if a small one. Yes, life was pretty damn sweet.

_Nu-uh little girl, what about the life you left behind?_

Daphne pushed the traitorous thought behind the locked door in the back of her mind. She was never going back to the house that had held her captive for so long, and there was no point dwelling on it.

She lay on the bed with her eyes closed for a few minutes more, listening to the wind playing through the translucent curtains covering her windows. Then she bounced to her feet, brushing her white-lightning hair out of her eyes, as she remembered the letter that had been delivered to her apartment the day before. Some company named Pinehearst was offering her a job, and she had been invited to meet a representative at a small waterfront cafe on the Seine she had been meaning to sample for weeks. The requested time had been four o'clock. It was now two minutes to four, and the cafe was a significant distance away.

At one minute to four, after a quick change of clothes, Daphne strolled through the crowd of tables, looking for the man she was supposed to meet with. Everyone she saw seemed to have someone else with them.

Finally, at the very farthest table, she spotted the person she was looking for. A well-dressed elderly man, with a shock of white hair and electrifying blue eyes, stared out across the river, watching the tourists on the other side. She sat down in the chair opposite him, and leaned intently across the table. "You have five minutes," she said sharply, not really in the mood to deal with a sales pitch.

The man turned to face her. "Ah yes. Ms. Millbrook. My name is Mr. Linderman. I represent a company called Pinehearst. We have a job for you."

--

**A Note From Lara: I love Daphne. She is my absolute favorite character, and I seriously hope she's one of the two deaths in Volume Four that's a fake-out. (Two of the three are supposed to be)**


	2. HeadSlicing and PocketPicking

**My Random Babbling: Okay, there isn't going to be much Peter/Daphne interaction for at least the first three or four chapters. For now, I'm just trying to draw subtle parallels between them until they meet.**

**So I felt like having a smackdown in this chapter, and I really hope that I managed to write a semi-believable fight scene. For once. I know the lead-in banter to the fight scene feels really surreal to me. But I think it sort of makes sense. Sylar has a really over-developed sense of irony. He would play on every last bit of the irony of the situation.**

--

Costa Verde

Peter and West touched down on the front lawn of a beautiful house in a well-to-do neighborhood. Peter wondered how a family supposedly on the run could afford such a nice home, but pushed aside the thought as he heard Claire's voice from somewhere inside the house. Without tuning in his super-hearing, he couldn't make out quite what she was saying, but the strained tone of her voice said that something was very wrong. "Stay behind me," he said to West. "I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm guessing it's dangerous." West stepped behind Peter without question, peering around his back as Peter pulled open the door.

They entered, and the slight squeak the door made against the frame echoed hugely in Peter's ears against the sudden ominous silence in the house. He led the way through the entryway and they entered the hallway leading to the living room. "What's that?" West asked, pointing at something lying in the living room doorway.

Peter's eyes widened as he fought with the nausea that suddenly roiled in him. _ It was _impossible_! Hiro had run the maniac through with a sword, for god's sake!_ "It's... the top of Claire's skull. Sylar's here," he whispered.

"Who's Sylar?" West asked quietly, his face turning a disturbing shade of green.

"It doesn't matter. He's a killer. I'll distract him; you grab Claire and get out of here!" West nodded, and Peter's face set in a grim look of determination. He stepped into the living room.

Sylar stood up, wiping the blood from his hands as he stood over Claire's prone form. A slow smirk crossed his face. "Peter Petrelli," he said silkily. "Last time I saw you, you were having a nuclear meltdown on Kirby Plaza." Peter heard Claire's soft intake of breath as his name passed Sylar's lips, but she didn't move. He wondered if perhaps she were playing dead for the serial killer's benefit.

If Peter's face had been grim before, it was nothing compared to the stony look in his eyes now. "Gabriel Gray," he replied slowly, choosing to follow the pattern his enemy had laid out. "Last time I saw you, you were lying on the ground with a samurai sword sticking through you."

The taller man closed his eyes, smiling almost nostalgically. "Good times, weren't they?" he said.

"Not particularly," Peter said. "As I recall, you killed me. Twice."

"As I recall," Sylar said, his eyes never leaving Peter's, "It was _you_ who tackled _me_ off the building the first time."

Claire whimpered, and Peter's eyes immediately snapped to her. "Claire, are you alright?" he asked.

She sat up, the top of her head still missing. "Not really," she said shakily. "Peter, are you really here? Or am I just hallucinating?"

He laughed humorlessly. "It's really me," he said. Then he glanced at Sylar. "What now?"

Sylar shrugged. "Well, we both know I want what you have. And we both know that it's going to be rather difficult for me to get it, because you're most certainly going to put up a better fight than your lovely cheerleader here. And thanks to Claire, neither of us can die now. It seems we're in a Mexican standoff of sorts." He seemed to be enjoying their verbal battle almost as much as he would surely enjoy the physical one in the offing. "What _shall_ we do?"

Peter sighed. "What we normally do, I guess," he said tiredly. "We fight. One of us ends up dying. West, get Claire out!" He tossed the last words over his shoulder seconds before launching himself across the room at Sylar. He didn't stop to see if his command had been obeyed, he simply pushed himself into the battle, determined to buy them time. Taking his mind to ground so that he wouldn't lose his control, Peter allowed his hands to heat up, filling them with radiation. He threw a punch at Sylar, who dodged, using his telekinesis to pin Peter in place, keeping him from using most of his abilities. Then he raised him several feet into the air, allowing him to revolve slowly in midair.

"Well well," Sylar said. He circled Peter like a feral cat stalking its prey. "Gotten better at using Teddy's power since last time, haven't we?"

"You have no idea," Peter said. He released the huge charge of electricity he had concealed in his palm directly at Sylar, burning deep welts in his skin. The telekinetic bonds keeping him in place fell away as Sylar fell to the ground. Peter dropped lightly, allowing Nathan's power to take over, slowing his descent. "Don't have to be able to move to do that!" He stood over his enemy, a ball of blue lightning clutched in his palm. Sylar stared at him, wide-eyed, and a powerful thought so loud Peter caught it without having to try blasted out of his mind. "Wait, you know Elle?" Peter demanded. Sylar didn't reply, simply climbed to his feet and raised his hand. Immediately Peter felt the bonds closing on him again, and threw Sylar across the room with his own telekinesis. Sylar slammed into a glass-fronted bookcase and rebounded against the floor.

As he rose, wiping blood from his quickly-healing lip, he laughed. "Haven't we done this before?" he said. "Gonna go invisible now, Petey?"

Peter snorted. "Yes, because it worked so well last time. Let's see if this works any better." Without another word, he seized his nemesis around the waist and launched himself out the open window. They rose into the sky, Sylar dangling below, until Peter judged that they had reached a height of about five thousand feet. Then... he let go. Sylar let out a scream as he dropped toward the ground.

--

Tokyo

Hiro Nakamura pressed pause as the Yamagato Industries logo reappeared on the screen, replacing the image of his father. "This is it!" he exclaimed in Japanese. "This is my quest!" Excitedly, he began searching through his desk for the coded button that would open the electronic lock on his father's safe.

"What are you doing?" Ando demanded. "Your father told you not to open the safe! You're supposed to protect what's in there!"

Finding the remote, Hiro punched the button. "I'm bored, Ando! I want a quest. I don't want to be a guardian!" he announced. When the safe door slid open, he approached the safe and pressed his thumg into the fingerprint-identification panel. Immediately, the second panel slid back with a beep. He pulled out a sealed manilla envelope. A Post-it note on the outside said "Press play."

Confusion written all over his round face, Hiro did as instructed and hit the button on the remote control. Immediately, his father's face reappeared. "I _told_ you not to open the safe, Hiro," Kaito Nakamura said disapprovingly. "But now that you have, you must know that there is a second half to this formula. They were kept in separate locations in order to ensure its safety. You must guard this secret with your life, for this formula has the power to destroy the world. If the two halves of the formula are ever united, there is but one hope. A chosen one among you who carries the purity of blood, a "_light_" to guide you in the darkness. Do you understand?"

"No," Hiro said, clearly lost. He shot a hopeless glance at Ando as Kaito continued with one final goodbye. The screen went black. "A light in the darkness? What does he mean?" Ando shrugged, and was about to reply when a whoosh of air whirled through the room and the envelope Hiro was holding disappeared out of his hand. "What was that?" Hiro exclaimed. Squishing his eyes shut tight, he put time on hold.

When he opened his eyes again, he was surprised to see a grey and red streak in the air leading out of his father's office and through the halls of Yamagato Industries. He followed the line in the air, ducking over and around it as necessary. Suddenly, he came face-to-face with the source of the blur.

A woman- she looked to be about twenty-five- stood frozen along with the rest of the world; from her stance, she had been running when time stopped. Hiro studied her. Her bright brown eyes dominated her pixie face beneath a shock of spiky white-blonde hair. Suddenly, her head turned as the streak she had left in the air caught up to her. "How are you doing this?" she demanded. "Are you a speedster too?"

"Speedster? No. I am Hiro Nakamura. I have stopped time," Hiro announced proudly.

Daphne laughed sharply. "Yeah. Well. You didn't stop it completely, or this conversation is not happening." She turned and walked around the office space around them, circling one of the paused workers.

Hiro shook his head. "So... you move fast?" he asked.

"No!" She leaned in close to him, standing on tiptoe so that she was directly in his face. "I don't move fast. I move _really_ fast."

Backing away from her, Hiro said, "You have stolen something that belongs to me."

She quirked her lips, and held up a piece of paper. "You mean this?" Hiro shouted excitedly in Japanese, and she rolled her eyes. "So tell me. This time-stopping thing. How does it work? If you follow me to Bangkok, will time stay stopped in Tokyo?"

"I don't know."

Daphe smirked. "Well. That gives you something to think about when you get back on your feet." And before he could voice his confusion over what she'd said, she landed a solid right hook directly between his eyes. Hiro Nakamura hit the ground hard, and time immediately restarted. "Toodles!" Daphne said to the cross-eyed time traveller. And then she was gone, in a whirlwind of displaced memos.

--

A Beach North of Costa Verde

It didn't take Peter long to locate Claire and West. He touched down in the sand a few yards away, and Claire immediately ran into his arms. He pulled her into a close embrace and let her sob into his chest. West's eyes met his over her head, and immediate understanding crossed in their gazes. The teenager retreated to a granite outcropping sticking a short way away, watching the reunion closely, but allowing it to continue uninterrupted.

"I thought you were dead," Claire whispered against his chest.

Peter half-smiled. "No, I'm definitely alive," he said. "I tried to keep myself from hurting anyone else the way I hurt Nathan. I let the Company lock me up, but then they wouldn't let me out. When I decided to escape on my own, they sicced the Haitian on me and I wound up in Ireland with no memory." Claire laughed bitterly through the tears that were still pouring down her face. "Oh Claire," Peter said. "What did he do to you?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Nothing worse than what he's done to plenty of other people," she said. "Sliced my head open. Looked at my brain. Talked to me while he was doing it."

Peter grimaced. "Are you hurt at all?" he asked, examining her closely.

Claire nodded. "I'm fine, Peter. Just... really shaken. I thought he was dead."

"We all thought he was dead, Claire," Peter reminded her. "Hiro ran him through, remember? He bled out on Kirby Plaza."

West chose that moment to interrupt. "Um... you guys have mentioned Kirby Plaza like three times now. What exactly happened there?"

"It's... it's just... it's a really long story. I'll tell you later, okay?" Claire said. "Right now we should probably... what did you do to him?" She changed directions at the speed of light, surprising Peter with her question.

He puffed out his cheeks. "I dropped him from a couple miles up. Hopefully putting himself back together will take him awhile. We need to buy time to get you somewhere safe, okay?"

Claire shook her head. "No Peter. It's okay. Sylar got what he wanted, and he's not coming back. He said as much. Said he didn't really want to kill me, and couldn't have, even if he wanted to. He said I was "special." More special than the others. What did he mean?" Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes again, and Peter pulled her close again.

"I don't know," Peter said. "I just don't know anything when it comes to Sylar. Honestly, I think Hiro probably gets him better than I do. Look, um, I'll stick around for awhile, just to be absolutely sure he's not coming back. Why don't we all go back to your house for awhile? I have a bit of a mess there to clean up anyway. I sort of smashed your bookcase."

Claire laughed incredulously, more from near-hysteria than anything else, but immediately took West's hand. "Okay," she said. "I... it would be nice to have you two with me until my mom gets home, at least."

West lifted the cheerleader into his arms and nodded to Peter. After a quick glance around to avoid any unwanted observers, they launched themselves into the air.

--

Paris

Daphne sat on her bed, one of her legs drawn up beneath her, the other swinging free off the edge of the bed as she strummed absentmindedly on the battered wooden guitar she held. She couldn't play worth crap, but she'd found the guitar at a garage sale when she was seven and refused to let go of it until her father bought it for her. Maybe it was time she actually learned how to play...

But for now, the nonsense sounds her fingers drew from the strings served its purpose. The soft humming brought her mind down to the present moment as she thought about what she'd done. The stealing itself didn't bother her so much- she'd played at pocket-picking once or twice when cash was tight. This job had bigger implications, though. The sheaf of paper, safely ensconced in its little plastic cover, had some kind of chemical formula written on it. She wasn't sure what it was, but she didn't think any good could come of turning it over to Mr. Linderman. Daphne could read people well enough to know that Pinehearst's liaison reeked of deceit and a refined version of that up-to-no-good feeling you got off muggers. She didn't feel right about this.

What choice did she have, though? Her work as a messenger brought in steady money, but not nearly enough to get by on, even using her powers to speed up her delivery times. She needed cash, and Linderman had promised that she'd be paid very well. Moreover, if she did this job for them, he'd said they had some kind of full-time employment lined up for her. Another very well-paying job.

Daphne was desperate to escape the relative poverty she'd grown up in. She'd done pretty well for herself so far, but "just enough to get by" _wasn't_ enough anymore.

The plucking noise of the guitar mingled with the silvery whisper of the wind chimes she'd hung in the window, and the quiet sounds eased her anxiety just the way they always did. _Alright Daphne,_ she told herself sternly. _It's not really that big a deal, is it? It's just some kind of formula. How sinister can it really be? Just a bunch of hydrogen and oxygen atoms from the looks of it. Giving it to Pinehearst isn't actually going to hurt anybody._ No. No, it couldn't possibly. She could hand it over to Mr. Linderman, and get a nice big stack of cash in return. It was fine. Everything was just fine.

--

**A Note From Lara: Alrighty then. So that's that. This whole chapter felt just a little surreal to me. Wonder why. Anyway, I want your opinions on some stuff. Who do you want the major villain in this fic to be, since I've already said I refuse to include Arthur Petrelli in this? I'm not guaranteeing that I'll use your idea, but I'd like a little outside influence on this decision before I get any deeper into this.**


	3. Reconnecting

**Author's Note: Okay, by overwhelming majority, Adam is going to be Bad Guy _Numero Uno_ in this fic. And, as several of you have rightly said, he can pull off the whole giving-the-entire-human-race powers thing really well. It matches with his psychosis.**

**And hey, while I'm at it, I should take a chance to pimp the Star Trek movie to all those who haven't seen it yet. Zachary Quinto _OWNS_!!! It's like he was made for the role. And it's converted me to a hard-core Trekkie. I burned through all the seasons of the original series after seeing the movie. I'm currently attempting to learn Klingon. :)**

--

_Petrelli Mansion, New York_

Angela sat up sharply, clutching a hand to her throat. "Oh no," she whispered. Flinging herself out of bed, she pulled a silk robe over her nightgown and hurried downstairs. "Nathan? Peter?" she called.

"What is it, Ma?" Nathan asked, stepping out of the drawing room.

The matriarch of the Petrelli clan shook her head. "It's... where is Peter? I must speak to him!"

Nathan shrugged. "He's gone, Ma. He said he was going to visit Claire or something, that he probably wouldn't be back for a week or so. Why?"

Angela growled low in her throat. Dammit, she needed to find someone who could stop this... but with Peter gone, there was really only one thing she could do. "Fine," she said sourly. "Do not expect me home before late this evening, Nathan." And with that, she whisked back upstairs, hurrying into her late husband's office. She picked up the telephone, dialing through for the private line Arthur had set up before his... accident. Once she was connected to the secure second line, she dialed another number.

The call was received. "This is Angela Petrelli," she said urgently. "We need to meet face-to-face, in private. Immediately."

_Paris_

The speedster raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Recruiting? What kind of recruiting?"

Linderman smiled widely. "The company I represent requires the assistance of certain... _empowered_... individuals to achieve our aims. With your ability, you are perfectly placed to deliver our message to them."

Daphne cocked her head to the side. "And by 'empowered,' you mean... what, exactly? More people with special powers?"

"Exactly," the ex-mobster exclaimed. "Did you really think you were the only one, Miss Millbrook?"

Yes, actually, she sort of had until she met Hiro Nakamura. The discovery of the time-traveler had thrown her off-balance considerably, but it prepared her for the job Pinehearst was offering her. Working as a sort of head hunter for the super-powered individuals of the world was really the perfect job for her, as Linderman had pointed out. "Okay," she said slowly. "It sounds alright. Now, let's talk money..."

_New Jersey_

Angela took a sip of her _sauvignon blanc_, scanning the restaurant over the rim of her glass for the man she was looking for. She grimaced. The wine was slightly bitter, clearly allowed to ferment too long. She would have to say something to the maitre d. Finally she spotted her target, unmistakable with his "well-worn" bomber jacket and balding crown. He spied her at the same moment, and scuttled across the intervening space, clearly looking uncomfortable in the classy atmosphere that positively reeked of Old Money. He dropped his heavy frame into the chair across the secluded table for two from her.

"Maury Parkman," she said in greeting, extending her hand.

He shook it nervously. "Angela. It's been a long time."

She nodded, a carefully crafted predatory smile on her lips. "Too long, my old friend."

Maury's smile twitched nervously. "Alright. What did you call me here for? I'm very busy, and I really don't have time for--"

"I know what you're doing," Angela interrupted. "I know what you're planning, and I know whose orders you're under. I am here to tell you no. My husband is _dangerous_. He must not be allowed to recover from his injuries. You know what he's done. To Nathan, his own son, and what he intends for the world--"

"What we've _all_ done, Angela," Maury sighed. "Arthur is not the only one of us who's plotted horrendous things against our own children. Wasn't it just five months ago that you planned to blow up New York City, with your own son as the incendiary? And as for me... well..." He shook his head. "No Angela, however we started out, we're all monsters. Charles was the only one who kept the faith. I used to think we were two of a kind, Charles and I, but it seems we were wrong. He's the better man."

"_Was_ the better man, you mean. Dear Charles has passed," Angela commented dryly. "But Charles is of no importance now. It's about Arthur now. I have seen what the world will become if he is revived. Death, destruction, wars... exactly what he believes he will be preventing. It must be stopped- _he_ must be stopped- before it goes any further. As I understand, you are arranging... certain things for him. End it."

Maury sighed again. "Very well, Angela. I understand what you mean. Your husband is a fanatic. I won't discontinue the project, but I'll ensure that he doesn't recover."

Angela pursed her lips. _Very well_, she thought at Maury. _That will do for now._ She rose and abandoned her untouched dish of pasta, hastening from the restaurant.

As she stepped out of the rain and into the back seat of her sleek black car, she mused on what she had done. Perhaps, with someone less driven and more clearsighted than Arthur at its head, this madness Pinehearst had cooking might actually do the good it was intended to do...

_Costa Verde_

Peter waved over his shoulder at Claire, West, and Sandra, standing in the doorway of the "Butler" house. He had enjoyed meeting the woman who had raised his niece. She was a formidable woman in her own way. She had reacted shockingly well to the news that her daughter had had her head sliced open by a maniacal serial killer, and that she'd been rescued by an uncle everyone had believed to be dead. He wondered if Claire had learned from her quiet strength.

So... he had seen Claire, and he had assured himself that she was alright. With Sandra and West to take care of her, she would recover from Sylar's attack. What now?

Naturally, he had to do something about Sylar. That psycho couldn't be allowed to run loose. But at the same time, he had no idea how to stop him, now that he, like Claire and himself, was immortal. Clearly, though, he had to be stopped.

Well, he had intended to visit Hiro to apologize for beating him up. Maybe the time-traveler would have some idea how to take out Sylar. But where was Hiro? He assumed he was probably somewhere in Japan, but it would be difficult to locate him...

Suddenly, a half-forgotten ability he had picked up on Kirby Plaza (probably contributing to his meltdown) manifested with shocking rapidity. His eyes snapped shut involuntarily as he was carried mentally across the ocean. It was as though he was zooming in closer and closer on a map, right down to the very room where Hiro was.

When he opened his eyes, Peter knew exactly where to find the time-traveler. Who had this power? It must have been one of the two children who had been with Niki and her husband, that was for certain. Yet another mystery to be sorted out later. Peter closed his eyes tightly, and disappeared in a pop of air.

_Yamagato Industries, Tokyo_

Hiro was pacing the balcony outside his corporate office, staring helplessly out at the city.

"What is it, little brother?" a soft female voice asked in Japanese.

He whirled around. "Kimiko!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in a meeting!"

Kimiko smiled. "I was. But your friend Ando said you were very agitated, and that I ought to come talk to you."

Ando peered around the door separating the balcony from the main office. Hiro nodded to him, and he came onto the balcony, strategically positioning himself quite near Hiro's sister. "I have lost something that Father entrusted to my care, Kimiko," the time-traveler said sadly.

"What was it?" Kimiko asked.

Hiro sighed. "It was... some kind of chemical formula. A woman came into my office and stole it."

Kimiko stared. "Couldn't you stop her?"

"She punched me," he said. "I couldn't freeze time again before she was gone."

Ando tried to conceal his snort of laughter as a hacking cough and received a skeptical look from Kimiko. Hiro frowned at him. "It's not funny!"

"I am still very unsure about all this," Kimiko said slowly. "Time-traveling and mysterious formulas and saving the world. I have seen no proof that this is not just a delusion you have created from reading too many comic books as a boy."

Hiro was about to protest vehemently when a sudden whoosh interrupted him, and suddenly there were four people standing on the balcony. Kimiko gasped. Hiro blinked several times to be sure his eyes weren't decieving him. "Peter Petrelli?" he gasped.

Peter couldn't help but smile at the curious twist his friend's accent gave his name. "Hiro. Good to see you. Better circumstances this time, I have to say. I came to apologize for what I did to you last week. There was no excuse for throwing you against the wall like that."

Hiro nodded solemnly. "There is no need to apologize, Peter Petrelli. The Kensei is a very manipulative man. He had convinced you of things that were not true."

The empath grinned. "Ando," he said, nodding to the man by the door. "It's been too long."

Ando gave him a hesitant smile. Kaito Nakamura had put the pieces together about what had happened five months ago on Kirby Plaza. As a result, Ando knew most of what had happened that night, and was surprised to see Peter relatively unchanged from the idealistic man he had been. Events like that tended to change a person.

"This is my sister, Kimiko," Hiro said, indicating the shocked woman beside Ando.

"It's nice to meet you," Peter said politely.

Kimiko swallowed her shock enough to return his greeting. "You... teleport, like Hiro?" she asked.

Peter shrugged. "I do a lot of things. I got the time/space manipulation thing from Hiro, and... well, it's complicated. I do whatever the people I've met can do." He was getting very tired of explaining his power to people. It wasn't like Matt, who could simply say he was a telepath, or Nathan, who could just say he could fly. Saying "I'm an empath" didn't mean that much to most people. And the layman's explanation was something of a mouthful.

"Look, Hiro, this isn't just a social visit. I... have some bad news. Sylar's still alive."

--

**A/N #2: I just remembered a couple of sideline pairings I should have mentioned. We probably won't see a whole lot of them, because this is centered around Peter, Daphne, Audrey, and Matt but the other pairings are probably going to be something along the lines of: Ando/Kimiko (mostly Ando striking out, but who knows?), Syelle (of course!), and either Claire/West or Claire/Hiro (really, _really_ weird pairing, I know, but I read a Hiraire fic once, and it was amazing). Like I said, these'll probably only be vaguely referenced occasionally, but I thought you ought to know.**


	4. Anything To Get Away From Creepy Chick

**Author's Note: All of my A/N is at the bottom today, because it won't make any sense until you read this chapter. But I hope the last section gives you as many giggles-n-laughs to read as it did me while I was writing it.**

--

_Suresh's Apartment- New York_

_Three Days Ago_

Matt closed his eyes in frustration. Every time he turned around, there was Mohinder and Maya, staring at each other lustfully while continuing to deny any feelings they had for each other. It had been this way for almost two weeks now.

Personally, Matt couldn't understand what attraction the girl held for Mohinder. All he could muster up towards her was a vague dislike masked by what little tolerance he had for her constant complaining.

A sneaking suspicion told him Molly felt the same way.

"Mohinder promised to help me with my homework, but I think he forgot," the nine-year-old sighed. "He's down at the lab again. With Maya." She made a face at the pile of papers spread out on the kitchen table.

He glanced at her in surprise, looking up from his pathetic attempt to make waffles. "You have homework?" he asked, wisely deciding to avoid the subject of their houseguest. "I thought you were on spring break."

Molly nodded. "I am. But Ms. Larkin gave us some worksheets to do so we wouldn't forget everything over the two week break."

Just as he was about to reply, Matt's cell phone rang. "Hang on a sec," he said, stepping into the next room and answering the call.

"Parkman?" asked a very familiar voice.

Matt nearly dropped the phone in shock. "Audrey?" he gasped, adjusting his grip to keep the phone from slipping to the ground.

"Yeah, it's me," the agent said in a surly voice. "Look, I know you're working with the NYPD and stuff now, but look, you're the best partner I ever had, and I've been working on this really tough case, and I was wondering if... maybe... you could come out for a week or two to help me try and crack this." She sounded resigned, and Matt could just picture her, running a hand through her blonde hair in frustration. Clearly she didn't like the idea of needing any help with an assignment. The prospect of working with her again, however, was oddly appealing. She definitely made a more interesting- definitely more reliable- partner than anyone he'd been assigned to work with on the New York police force.

"Uh, sure. I'm not really working on anything pressing myself right now. Where are you at?"

She sighed. "For the moment, I'm stationed in California. Costa Verde. Do you think you can make it out?"

Matt hesitated, wondering if this was really such a good idea. "Yeah. Not a problem. I can be there tomorrow," he said. Anything to get him out of the way of Maya and Mohinder. "Meet you outside the airport, alright?"

They arranged a time, and Matt hurried back into the apartment, flipping open Mohinder's laptop and looking for the next flight to Costa Verde. This, he suddenly realized, could be a snag. If he couldn't get a flight, he was fairly screwed. Then again, maybe he could just ask Nathan for a lift...

"What are you doing?" Molly asked, coming to peer over his shoulder.

He smiled at her. "Trying to book a flight to California. An old friend asked me to come help her with a case."

Molly shook her head. "Uh-uh. No _way_ are you leaving me alone with Mohinder and _her_!" she exclaimed. "I'm coming with you!"

"What? No!" Matt said sharply. "I'm gonna be busy with FBI business. You need to stay here and make sure Mohinder doesn't do anything stupid with his research."

The human GPS shook her head again, more emphatically. "I'm coming with you." Matt groaned in frustration. Could he really blame her for wanting to get away from those two? God knows he'd jumped at the first chance that came around with hardly a second thought.

"Fine," he said, sensing that he was probably going to regret this.

Molly beamed at him. "Great! I'll go pack my stuff! When do we leave?"

_Paris_

_The Present_

Daphne crossed her arms, cocking her head to one side in irritation. "So you're telling me that... you want me to bring you someone, but you don't know where this someone is or how I might find him?"

Linderman smiled. "Precisely, my dear. I have great faith in you. I am completely confident that you can do this one little thing for me."

His complacent smile made Daphne want to sock him one right in the mouth, but she resisted the temptation. "Alright. Am I at least allowed to know what he looks like? Ooh, how about a name?" Linderman gave her a patronizing nod, and pulled a photo out of the inside pocket of his expensive suit. It was a picture of a tall blonde man, standing next to Linderman himself, and a black-haired woman holding a baby in her arms.

"This," Linderman said, pointing to the blonde man, "is Adam Monroe. Or at least, that's how he calls himself now. He's a regenerate- he can heal from any injury."

"Useful," Daphne commented dryly.

"Indeed. Very useful. He used to spend a lot of time in Japan. You might start there. Do a thorough sweep of the country, then branch out to the continent. After you've covered Asia, spread out to Africa, then Europe, and so on and so forth. Can you do that for me?"

Daphne shrugged. "I can do anything, if the price is right."

"That's my girl," he said, grinning fondly.

She narrowed her eyes. "I might work for you," Daphne snapped, "but I'm _not _your girl. I'm not _anybody's_ girl."

"Have it your way," Linderman said, leaning back in his seat.

_Pinehearst Headquarters_

_North of San Francisco_

Maury Parkman twisted his hands together in apprehension. Finally, he reached across and yanked the plug that powered Arthur Petrelli's life support systems out of the wall. Immediately, monitors spiked then went dead, and a shrill beeping came from the alarms rigged into the bed. Arthur spasmed, twitching violently. His angry thoughts bombarded Maury's tortured mind, spitting rage-filled ideas as fast as machine-gun fire. Slowly though, the thoughts began to stutter away.

Knox came bursting into the room. "What the--?" he asked. "Aw sonofabitch! I knew his old lady had talked to you, but I didn't know you were actually gonna go _through_ with..." He sighed, rubbing his forehead, as the heart monitor beeped its last. Arthur Petrelli was dead- for real this time.

"What do we do now?" Maury groaned, already regretting his decision. "What do we do now? Who'll tell us what to do?"

The other man resisted the urge to slap the near-hysterical telepath. "Shut up. It'll be fine. Look, a few months ago I was in this bar, where you can hire people with powers. There was this guy there, Adam somebody-or-other. He was a real leadership type. Maybe we can track him down and--"

"Adam? Adam Monroe?" Maury guessed unhappily.

Knox nodded. "Yeah, that's the one. Look, you just keep Flint and that speedster happy, and I'll track down Adam. I imagine he'd want to be in on this, anyway. From what he said that night, I bet he'd like this idea you and Mr. Petrelli cooked up."

Maury nodded, looking anxious. "Look, we were going to have Monroe found anyway. Mr. Petrelli needed... certain things from him. I already put Millbrook on it. But there were rumors awhile back that Hiro Nakamura might know where he is. Find Nakamura, you find Monroe."

"Who the hell is Hiro Nakamura?"

"Time-traveler. Lives in Japan. Tokyo." Knox nodded, and walked out of the room.

_Yamagato Industries_

_Tokyo_

Peter ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Hiro, that only worked once," he said. "Stabbing him won't do any good now that he can regenerate. Look, we've been going over this for hours and we're no closer to a way to stop him than we were before. I guess I could distract him and somebody could put a bullet in his brain..."

He shrugged hopelessly. Kimiko laid a hand on his arm, smiling. "I am sure you will find a solution," she said, in a surprisingly solicitous tone, especially for her. Ever since they had explained what had happened five months ago on Kirby Plaza, she had been staring at Peter with a curious form of hero-worship in her eyes. "I have faith in you."

"What?" Ando gasped, leaping out of his seat before even Hiro could say a word. "Hiro, your own brother, you doubt and deny. Yet this man whom you have only known for two hours has your complete faith?"

Kimiko performed a short bow of apology to Hiro. "I am sorry Ni-San," she said to him. "Your friend is right. I owe you an apology for not believing in you."

Completely lost, Peter said, "Look, I need to go. If you think of any way to stop Sylar, contact me if you can, and I'll help. I seem to have picked up some kind of GPS ability, so if you need to find him..."

He trailed away, and Hiro nodded. "Thank you, Peter Petrelli."

Peter smiled, then slid open the glass doors to the balcony, and hurled himself off the edge. Immediately, Kimiko ran outside, a shout half-formed on her lips. But as she peered down, expecting to see a body many stories below, Peter hurtled upward past her. She gazed upward, a dazed smile on her lips as the empath disappeared with a tiny sonic boom.

Hiro and Ando stood behind her, and the time-traveler shared a glance with his friend. "Uh-oh," he said, acknowledging the dreamy look that had appeared on Kimiko's normally serious face.

"Kimiko?" Ando asked. "Are you alright?"

She nodded. "Oh. Yes. I'm fine. Why did you never tell me about this friend of yours, Hiro?" she asked. "He's marvelous." She walked inside, presumably with the intent of returning to the interrupted meeting.

Ando rubbed the back of his neck in frustration, glaring at the point in the sky where Peter had disappeared. "Crap," he muttered.

--

**I couldn't resist. I just _couldn't_ resist. Yeah, Hiro's sister has the hots for Peter. Actually, now that I think about it, Kimiko might be the best match for Peter (aside from Daphne or Claire) of any canon character. After all, he's sort of an emo Superman, and from the one episode she was in, I always kinda got the impression that she had a bit of a Lois Lane complex (carefully concealed from Kaito, of course). Huh. Maybe I'll have to write a fic. After I get through all the other ones I'm working on right now, of course.**


	5. Matt's Investigation

**Author's Note: Alright, I would have had this up awhile ago, but the stupid internet was down AGAIN! I seriously hate Mediacom. I really, really do. I'm about THIS close to going and standing in the middle of their closest office and screaming as loud as I can until they send someone to fix my internet connection. Which I can actually do, thanks to the fact that I play the oboe and can circular-breathe.**

--

_Matt, Molly, and Audrey_

_Costa Verde- Yesterday_

As they left the airport's air conditioning behind for the hot blast of sun-drenched California air, Matt spied a familiar blonde head looking around. Audrey still hadn't seen them. He couldn't help but smile at the sight of her. Seeing her again triggered something in him that he couldn't quite identify.

"Agent Hanson!" Molly yelled, racing ahead of Parkman to embrace a startled Audrey. The federal agent smiled. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

Molly grinned. "Matt brought me with him."

By this time, she had released Audrey. Matt opened his arms and leaned in to hug his old partner in turn, but he met her outstretched hand instead. After a moment of awkward silence, he took the proferred hand with an uncomfortable chuckle. "You look good," he said. "How've you been?"

She shrugged. "Well, I was better until this latest series of incidents. Why on earth did you bring Molly with you?"

He sighed, running a hand across her jaw. "Well, it was this or leave her with the absentminded professor and his _girlfriend_." He spat the last word out angrily.

"Oh, that's right," Audrey said, looking at him strangely. "You and Dr. Suresh are living together. Are things alright between you two?"

For a moment, Matt didn't see what she was getting at. Then he let out a bark of laughter. "W-wait, you think that- that Mohinder and I are--? No, no, it's nothing like that. It was just that I'd been shot and everything, and since we were really the only people Molly had and she didn't want to choose between us..." He trailed away, making a hopeless gesture with his hands.

"Oh." Audrey turned scarlet and nodded, embarrassed by her assumption. Matt watched her closely, seeing something in her dark eyes that he couldn't identify. It was only with extreme difficulty that he kept his mind closed from hers. "Well," she said finally, "it's good to see you again. Let's... um, there's a coffeeshop just a couple blocks from here. We can go there and I'll explain the case to you."

--

Twenty minutes later, Audrey was sipping a triple shot of espresso and going over the contents of the manilla folder she had pulled from her oversized purse. "It's a series of high-speed robberies. Mostly it's high-tech scientific and medical equipment. Nearly all of it has been taken from government facilities here in California, and a couple sites in the rest of the Southwest. Some private companies have been hit, but almost all of the things taken are so highly experimental that main-stream businesses don't have access to it yet."

"What do you mean, high-speed robberies?" Matt asked.

She ran a hand through her hair the way she always did when she was trying to hide her frustration. "Well, that's the weird thing about the case. Every one of these robberies has taken place in broad daylight, during working hours. Plenty of witnesses, and we've even got security tapes. They just... disappear. Once it became clear that this wasn't just an ordinary string of thefts, they called me in. After the Sylar case, I somehow wound up as the FBI's call-guy for all things Weird and Unexplained."

Matt snorted, and she gave him an angry look. "What, you think that's funny?"

"No, no," he said hastily, still laughing to himself. "I'm sorry. What's your theory?"

Audrey sighed. "It's just speculation, but... well, there are really only two options at this point. Whoever does it is invisible, or can move at the speed of light. I'm inclined to think the second one. I went over the security tapes from one location, and slowed it down as much as possible and there's a sort of... _blur_ on the screen right before the item in question disappeared into thin air."

Matt nodded, thinking hard. "Alright," he said. "Give me a few hours to look over the case material. Where are you based right now?"

She shrugged. "Well, officially I've got an office set aside for me in the Costa Verde sheriff's station, but--"

"I know how you are about offices," he said, smiling. "Guess not everything changes, huh? Well, we can meet there and go over the facts, then try to plan our next move." They agreed on a time and parted with another oddly formal handshake.

_Daphne Millbrook_

_Japan_

The world was on pause. It wasn't as though they were moving in slow motion or anything- she was moving too fast even for that. Everyone else was completely frozen in place, while she was running. It wasn't tiring, not in the least. It was just... right. This was her natural state. Sometimes she would stop running, but stay in superspeed mode, watching the world go about so slowly around her that it was as though she had just stopped time, like Hiro. She had all the time the world could give her to do whatever she wanted.

But sometimes- just sometimes- she would feel a stir of loneliness deep inside her. She would stare around her at all the unmoving people and realize that every single one of them had someone with them or waiting for them.

Not her, though. She was alone. She had been alone for a long time, even before she left her parents farm. Her father had been good to her, but he had never understood what it was like for her, and so she forced her lips closed, holding in the screams of frustration to avoid alienating him. Most nights, she had lain awake long after he had drifted to sleep, staring at the leaking ceiling and burning inside. She had always had big dreams, but it seemed like she was trapped. A caged animal, held captive by her disease. A bird with broken wings. And then, one day, it had all changed. She had seen the eclipse, and suddenly everything became so much easier. She could walk. She could run. And in that moment, she had known that it was her chance to get away from her cage. She had fled, and never turned back. And now she was more alone than she had ever been.

Whenever she started thinking this way, she took off, running as far and as fast as she could, trying to outstrip the feeling. Because she knew where letting it catch up to her lead- she would regret leaving, because even running was useless if she had nobody to share this frozen world with. And that wasn't who she was. She didn't need anyone. She'd been so dependent on other people for everything her whole life that now that she was free, she didn't need anyone hanging around anymore. That was all in the past.

With a sudden burst, Daphne took off, flying from the small fishing village she had been standing in straight to downtown Tokyo. She wasn't sure why. It just seemed like a good place to start. As she dashed along the crowded streets, weaving through the crowd as nothing more than a breeze, she spied a familiar face.

It was easy to spot the dark-skinned Knox in the crowd of Japanese people. She skidded to a graceful stop directly in front of you. "What're you doing here?" she asked, arms crossed in front of her. "Did the boss send you out to check up on me?"

He chuckled mirthlessly. "No. You're looking for Monroe, right?" She nodded wordlessly. "The talking heads sent me to find him, too. Supposedly there's some guy named Nakamura who might know where he is."

That startled her. "Nakamura? As in Hiro Nakamura? The time-traveler?"

He nodded. "That's the one. Why? You know him?"

She cocked her head to one side, staring up at him from beneath lowered eyelids. "Sort of. I punched him in the face a couple of days ago." Knox laughed again. "He knows where Monroe is? Fine. I'll tell you where he is. You deal with this Adam guy, okay? Tell Linderman and Parkman and whoever else that I'm wrapping up the other things they've had me doing, the stuff in San Francisco." Knox nodded. Daphne scribbled an address down on a slip of paper, shoved it into his hand, and disappeared in a whirlwind.

_Matt and Audrey_

_San Francisco- Today_

Audrey sighed as she stepped past the police tape after going over the crime scene in search for any sort of clue. "Well this is just great," she said. There had been another robbery not two hours before, this time at a medical equipment factory in San Francisco with the same MO as all the previous ones. "It's just like all the others. No eyewitnesses- at least, none who actually saw anything- no fingerprints, no clues. This isn't doing us any good, Parkman. We're just chasing smoke. Parkman?"

But Matt wasn't listening. He was examining a sheet of paper held tightly in front of him. "Audrey," he said slowly, pulling her out of earshot of the local police officers. "Look at this." It was a black-and-white map of the area of California they were in, with the locations of all the robberies marked by red dots.

She seized the paper. "What? We already know this stuff."

"No," he insisted, pointing to the dots. "Don't you see? Look at the shape it makes. This is the symbol of the Company!" It was true- the locations of the robberies did seem to form a sort of twisting symbol, like a broken DNA strand.

Audrey groaned. "What _is_ it with you and this Company?" she demanded. "You got yanked from our last joint investigation because of your obsession with Glasses Guy, and now you're trying to turn _this_ one into some kind of Company conspiracy? Well, I don't mind telling you, Parkman--"

"Look at it," he insisted. Finally, she glanced down at the sheet of paper he held out to her. As she looked down at it, her angry expression faded into surprise.

"Wow. I'm impressed, Parkman." He looked at her in surprise. Praise didn't come frequently from Audrey Hanson. "Thanks," he said.

He drew a small dot on the map, covering the location where they were standing. It nearly completed the snake-like symbol. "Alright," he said. "If we're right about this, there are only two more dots we need to complete it. Are there any likely locations to be hit in about these areas?"

"I don't know," she said. "But I guess we'll find out." She called over a police officer and handed him the map, now with the two suspect locations circled in red marker. "I need you to check out these two places and tell me if there are any government buildings or scientific facilities near there." She turned back to Matt. "But Parkman, even if you _are_ right, what good does that do us?"

"These robberies are occurring in forty-eight hour intervals, right?" he said, not pausing to wait for a response. "Well, if we know where it's likely to take place, we can put people there to wait for the thief!"

Audrey nodded. "Yeah. But there have been plenty of people there before, and they've never seen a thing, let alone being able to do anything about it."

Matt grinned. "Right. But none of them has been me. I learned a new trick since the last time I saw you. I can make anybody do anything I want them to do."

She suddenly looked unnerved and uncomfortable. "Anything?" she asked. "Like... _anything_ anything?"

"That's what I said. I can make this guy stop in his tracks the minute he buzzes through there, make him show himself."

Regaining her composure, Audrey said, "Well that's great, but there're two locations and only one of you. You wouldn't happen to have any mind-reading buddies you could call on to help us out here, would you?"

Parkman grimaced. He had been afraid of this. "Actually," he said, "I sort of do. But... I don't really want to ask for his help. The last time I saw him... well, he was a little peeved at me, to say the least."

Suddenly, there was a pop behind him, and the man himself apppeared next to them. "Hey Parkman," Peter Petrelli said. "Mohinder told me you were in California."

--

**A/N2: Just a reminder for those of you who don't keep up with my other stories. I'm going to be on holiday (in California, ironically. I'll send you something from San Fran) for three weeks starting July 1st. Don't expect many updates after that date. I _may_ be able to get a few out on my laptop, but don't get your hopes up, okay? I promise, I'll get right back to FF after I get home, but for the better part of July it's going to be pretty slow.**


	6. The Speedster

**Author's Note: Okay, while I was on vacation, I was writing new chapters in a notebook, and I had a really cool one all written up for TSATS, but guess what? Notebook is MIA. So here's Chapter 6, Version 2.0 Hopefully it's better than the original, but I doubt it is.**

**

* * *

**

_Peter, Matt, and Audrey_

_San Francisco_

"Peter?" Matt gasped. "What are you doing here?"

The empath grinned. "Actually, I came to find you. I wanted to apologize. I didn't exactly behave myself the last time we met. I'm really sorry for throwing you up against the wall like that."

Audrey snorted. "Wait, _he_ threw _you_ up against the wall?" she asked incredulously, obviously comparing the relative sizes of the two men.

"With his brain!" Matt said indignantly. "I can't help it if he's telekinetic!"

Playing on his self-consciousness, Audrey teased, "Wait, what happened to I-can-make-people-do-anything? Couldn't you just make him stop?"

"Doesn't work on him," the telepath mumbled, face scarlet with humiliation.

Finally, Audrey relented in her humiliation of her sometimes-partner and turned to look at Peter. "I remember you," she said slowly. "From Texas, right? The pervert-nurse-stalker guy."

Peter opened and closed his mouth several times before he managed to stutter out, "Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that. I was trying to save the world, and to do that, I needed to save Claire Bennet. Speaking of Claire, Parkman, I also need your help. I have some bad news." He hesitated, clearly unwilling to say what he had to.

"Well? Spit it out!" Audrey commanded.

With a sigh, Peter said, "Sylar's back."

"_What_?" Matt exclaimed. "But... but Hiro killed him! He bled out on Kirby Plaza!"

"Apparently not," the empath said regretfully. "Because he was in Costa Verde just this morning. He sawed the top of Claire's head off and took her ability. So now, not only do we have a crazed serial killer on the loose who's out for blood, we have an _immortal_ serial killer who is seriously pissed."

Matt clapped a hand over his mouth in shock. "Oh god," he muttered. "Is Claire... I mean, did he--?"

Peter shook his head. "She's fine, physically at least. Once he put the top of her skull back on, she healed like always. I went to talk to Hiro, but he's got a problem of his own to deal with and he doesn't have the slightest idea of what to do about Sylar, anyway. So I said I'd come talk to you. You're a cop. You deal with this sort of thing, right? I thought maybe you'd have some ideas about what we could do to take him down."

The telepath bit his lip, then said, "All right. I'll think about it, see if I can come up with something. But I need your help, too. We have a bit of a _problem_ on our hands..."

--

Ten minutes later, Parkman had explained the details of the case. Peter was silent for a moment, deep in thought. Then he said, "So... someone fast?"

Audrey nodded. "That's the gist of it, yes."

Peter pursed his lips, thinking. "Hiro had some trouble with a speedster early this morning," he said slowly. "Stole something from his safe. Maybe it's the same person."

"Yeah, that's helpful," Matt said sarcastically. "But who is it? Did Hiro say who it was?" Peter shook his head. "Oh, well that's just great. We have nineteen robberies, one of them on a totally different continent, and no idea who the thief is or what they want with all this stuff."

"But we do have a lead," Audrey insisted. "We have a twenty-four hour window he could strike in. Parkman, you and I are going to Holbridge Research, and Peter, we can station you at Sunshine Med-Tech."

Matt started. "That's the company Ted Sprague worked for!" Peter and Audrey looked at him in surprise that he had remembered this tidbit, but he just shrugged. "Come on then, let's get moving. Mr. Empath here might be able to teleport over there any time he wants, but we've got a five hour drive if we're gonna make it to Holbridge in time to run surveillance before this guy shows. I'm gonna call Molly, and then we need to get going."

_Sunshine Med-Tech Facility_

_Emry, California_

Peter sighed, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. Idly, he wished he hadn't permitted Elle to cut it all off. He liked his hair longer...

God, he really _was_ bored, if he was seriously thinking this much about his hair. He'd been here for three hours, sitting in the observation room above the main floor of the production facility, watching closely for any kind of unusual activity, and so far, nothing. Stakeouts were far more boring than you'd expect. He didn't know how Parkman did it. And it didn't help that the Med-Tech workers kept sneaking sidelong glances at him. He couldn't blame them- after all, he wasn't a cop, and yet he had an FBI warrant- but it was annoying.

Just as he was standing up to go in search of something caffeinated, a loud whooshing noise caught his attention on the floor below. He turned around and saw a whirlwind of papers skittering across the floor. A large piece of equipment he had just been looking at a few minutes before was missing. Peter swore under his breath and slammed his eyes closed.

When he opened them, time had stopped, and there was a scarlet streak hanging in the air across the production floor of the facility. It was just like the blur Hiro had described to him this morning. Peter chased the streak, unable to shake the surreal feeling that he was headed for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The last thing he had expected was a girl. Hiro hadn't mentioned who the super-thief was, and Peter had been subconsciously expecting a man. But here was a tiny woman with a shock of lightning-white hair. He had no idea how she was supporting the machine she had pilfered, which was at least as big as she was. As the blur she'd left in the air caught up to her, he felt a rush of energy through his bones. He assumed that he had absorbed her ability.

Her large brown eyes blinked and she snapped to life. The machine she was carrying dropped to the ground with a loud thunk. "Oh _great_," she muttered when she saw him. "Not another one! The samurai-wannabe back in Tokyo was bad enough!"

"W-who are you?" Peter stuttered. She fixed him with her intense stare and he found himself rooted to the spot.

She narrowed her eyes and her mouth quirked up in a small smile. "Why is that's the first thing everyone asks me lately? Look pal, I'm a busy girl. Places to go, stuff to "borrow." So let's skip the cute and cut right to the chase. Let me guess- you want me to put the equalizer or whatever it's called back, right?"

"Uh..." he said, completely thrown by her direct speech.

With a disgusted eye-roll, she leaned against the equalizer and put a hand on her cocked hip. "Do you actually talk or do you just stutter?"

Pulling himself together, Peter said, "Of course. I was just... uh... Look, what's your name?"

"This again?" She sounded disgusted. "Name's Daphne. And if you'll excuse me, I've got places to go." She stepped away from the piece of equipment and belted him in the mouth, shocking him enough that he lost his self-control and allowed time to restart. As he rubbed his jaw, she grinned. "Didn't think that trick would work twice," she said cheerily. "Guess you time-travelers are dumber than you look. Which isn't saying much, but whatever." She disappeared.

And Peter took off after her, slipping into the frozen reality of super-speed as quickly as thinking. He spied her crimson form racing ahead of him and accelerated, trying to catch her. Finally he reached her side, somewhere in the area of Ohio. Daphne was so stunned, she skidded to a stop and lost her grip on the equalizer yet again.

"How are you doing this?" she gasped, looking unsettled for the first time in their brief acquaintance.

Peter shrugged. "I'm not a time-traveler," he said casually.

"Speedster?" she guessed.

"Actually," he replied, "I'm both. I'm an empath."

Daphne narrowed her eyes, cocking her head to look at him sideways. "Come again?"

"It means I absorb the abilities of all the people I come into contact with."

Although she was clearly impressed, or perhaps just surprised, she hid it well. "Wow," she said. "That's fun. So who are you then? What's your name?"

He snorted. "I thought you were tired of that question?" he said, unable to stop himself from poking a little fun at her. She gave him a sarcastic, "bite me" look. "I'm Peter," he finally replied, chuckling.

"So... what all can you do, Peter?" she asked, still glaring at him.

"You really want to know?" he asked, surprised. "Lately, most people only care about what I _won't_ do, not what I _can_." He didn't know what made him say it. It wasn't something he would talk about even with his family, let alone complete strangers. He had just blurted it out without thinking. But that didn't make it any less true. Ever since Kirby Plaza, people were only concerned with whether or not he was headed for another meltdown.

Daphne shrugged offhandedly. "The people I work for would probably want to know." His face fell, but she continued, "Besides, it's interesting. I didn't know there was anyone around with more than one power."

Oddly, he was tempted to tell her. But the other thing she'd said took precedence. "Who do you work for?" he asked.

She smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know? Look, Peter, you seem like a nice enough guy. Don't dig any further into this, alright? It could turn out really messy if you do- for both of us. The people I work for... well, I'm not the most morally sound person out there, but some of the stuff they're planning... It's not the kind of stuff you want to go poking into, if you want to stay alive. Just a friendly warning."

"So why work for them?" Peter asked.

Daphne looked up at him in silence for a moment, her brown eyes sad. Then, in a small voice, she said, "Because I have nowhere else to go."

And she was gone in a rush of wind. Peter stared at the spot where she had just been, thinking hard. He had a very bad feeling that he, Parkman, and the telepath's FBI girlfriend had stumbled onto something very, very big...

_Daphne_

_Paris_

Daphne pressed her back flat against the golden wall of her apartment, staring at nothing and thinking hard. She had dropped the equalizer off at the lab Petrelli had ordered to be outfitted before the idiot Maury offed him and zipped back to Paris. She needed time alone to think.

Why had she blurted that out to Peter? It was the most honest thing she had ever said to anyone, and she had said it to a complete and utter stranger. What had gotten into her? She wasn't the guts-spilling, heart-to-heart sort. Or at least, she never had been with her parents. Friends, she hadn't had many of, and those had really been more acquaintances than friends. So she didn't really know how she dealt with the emotional sort of conversation, but she was pretty sure that she'd been out of line.

She slid down the wall to sit on the floor, chin on her knees and arms wrapped around her legs. Peter was- what had he called it?- an empath. He had a bunch of random powers he'd stored up. Maybe he'd used one of them to force her to be honest? Yeah. That had to be it. She would never willingly reveal just how lonely she really was. Hell, she barely even let _herself_ see that, on good days! Of _course_ he'd mind-melded her!

A little voice at the back of her mind whispered, _But why didn't he do that earlier? He could have gotten you to spill everything you know about Pinehearst. Face it, little girl. You just blabbed off your mouth to some random guy because he was kinda cute._

_Shut up_, she told the voice, leaning her blonde head back against the wall with a dull thump.

* * *

**You know what? Daphne is SO hard to write! **

**Okay- the reviews over the last couple weeks have been slow. Wanna try and break the cycle? Tell me what you think about the beginning of Daphter!**


	7. Acceleration

**A Note From Lara: Hey everybody! Sorry updates have been slow. My internet is down, but I've got occasional internet access at school or if I drag the laptop down to the Dairy Queen to take advantage of their wifi. Hopefully I'll be back to regular updating in a couple weeks.**

**In other news, I've started a Daphter community on FF. If you feel like writing a Daphter story, or know of any besides the ones I've written, feel free to let me know, or request to be a staff member!**

**--**

_Peter, Matt, and Audrey_

_Costa Verde_

"It's a girl."

Peter threw himself down into a chair in Audrey's small office at the back of the Costa Verde sheriff's station, carefully avoiding the gazes of the other two.

"What?" Matt asked.

He sighed. "Your thief. The speedster. She's a girl. Her name is Daphne, and she's working for a company called Pinehearst. And from what she said, it's a company as in the _Company_."

The telepath stared at him, a look of comprehension slowly spreading across his face. But before he could say anything, Audrey burst in.

"Pinehearst? As in, the mob-funded research company in New Jersey?"

The men stared at her, not comprehending. Her arms, which had been crossed until that point, dropped to her sides in an expression of irritation. She rolled her eyes. "I'm an FBI agent. I know this stuff! Look, about a year and a half ago, Daniel Linderman and one of his bully-boy lawyers put up the cash to found a scientific research facility in Jersey. Genetics research, I think. Everything was all set up and ready to go, but the lawyer died about nine months ago, and then Linderman was murdered back in November, and from what I heard, after that the project collapsed."

"This lawyer," Peter said, putting the pieces together even as he spoke. "He wouldn't be Arthur Petrelli, would he?"

Audrey nodded, surprised. "Yeah! How did you--?" Comprehension broke on her face. "Oh. Peter _Petrelli_. I should've realized." Peter didn't respond.

"So," Matt said, after several seconds of uncomfortable silence, "I guess we're making a trip to New Jersey." The other two made noises of consent. "Great," he sighed. "Just what I need. Another cross-country flight in two days."

"You know," Peter said slowly, "I could just teleport us there. We can be there in ten seconds, if you want."

Relief broke over Matt's face. "That's great!" he exclaimed.

But Audrey shook her head. "You two can pop off wherever you want," she said bitterly, "but I'm on the clock with this assignment, remember? My boss is gonna want to know how I got from California to Jersey in less than an hour, and I really don't feel like explaining the two of you. I mean, Parkman is one thing. The FBI works with psychics pretty regularly when we run out of other options. But you?" She looked at Peter and shrugged. "You defy explanation."

Matt frowned, and not just from the renewed prospect of seven hours in a plane. He wasn't quite sure why, but hearing Audrey describe Peter as "defying explanation" awakened a twinge of jealousy. Just because his power wasn't so awe-inspiring, he was just another run-of-the-mill FBI asset? Deep down, he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn't have been so bothered if it had been anyone but Audrey saying it. He quickly buried his instinctual angry reaction behind resignation. "Guess we're flying after all," he said, frustrated.

She shook her head again. "Nope. Wrong again. Budget cutbacks. For anything less than the most pressing cases, travel options are pretty much limited to Rent-A-Car."

"What?" he demanded. "How is this not a pressing case?"

She crossed her arms again. "No one's dead yet. Unless someone's dead or dying, it's not urgent enough for my superiors. Unfortunately, we're going to have to _drive_ to New Jersey."

Matt stifled a groan, and it looked like Peter was feeling the same way. Audrey glared at them. "Oh, don't worry," she said. "The two of _you_ can still poof any time you want."

Her accusatory tone made Matt smile in spite of himself. "I don't mind driving," he found himself saying. "Besides, didn't Hiro have some... issues with that when he first started learning how? Like ending up five years in the future by accident?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. He did say something about the future... But I think I see what you mean." He laughed self-depricatingly. "Jeez, now I'm kinda scared to try it again. So teleportation's out. Thanks, Parkman. I guess we're all driving, then."

_Claire_

_Costa Verde_

"So... friends?" she asked.

West nodded. "Yeah. Friends. Claire, I... I won't lie, I'm gonna miss being with you. But with everything that's happened... we just don't see eye to eye anymore."

The blonde shook her head. "No. We don't." There was a sad look in her green eyes, but she hid behind a smile until West was safely out of the house. It was better that West wasn't tied to her now. She had told everyone that she was alright, that she had survived and she was fine. But she wasn't fine. She wasn't fine at all.

Mentally, she felt wrung out, exhausted. It had been quite possibly the worst day of her life, and all she wanted to do was curl up on her bed and cry herself out. But that wasn't all. She had cut her hand on a knife chopping vegetables about an hour before... but it hadn't hurt. Not so much as a twinge. She had seen the blood pool across the counter before the wound closed and the crimson drops were reabsorbed. She had seen her skin laid open to the bone. But there hadn't been any pain.

What had Sylar done to her?

"Mom?" she called. "I'm gonna go out for a little while before cheerleading practice."

Sandra leaned into view from the kitchen. "Where are you goin'?" she asked.

Claire smoothed down the skirt of her uniform, searching for an appropriate lie. "Just... out," she said. "Walk around a little. Think about things."

"Are you sure that's a good idea sweetheart?" her mother asked in concern.

The blonde nodded. "Mom, it's fine. I can't get hurt."

Sandra studied her astutely for a moment, then smiled. "Yes, but that doesn't stop me from worrying. You be careful. And _don't be out too late_! Are you gonna need a ride to cheerleadin' practice?"

"No, I'll just walk." She slipped out the door before Sandra could catch the look of apprehension in her face.

_Knox and Hiro_

_Tokyo_

Hiro slammed against the wall and just barely managed to stay conscious as his head rebounded against the wood panelling.

"I said, _where is Adam Monroe_?" Knox demanded, seizing Hiro's lapels and lifting him higher against the wall. "I ain't gonna ask you again!" Hiro bit down on his lips to keep from groaning in pain, and shook his head firmly. Once again, he wished he hadn't asked Ando and Kimiko to leave so that he could think in peace.

Knox glared at him. "You think you're gonna be a hero, keeping Adam locked up wherever you put him?" he hissed. "I got news for you- you're nothing. I could kill you. Right now. Then what good would you have done? Nothing. Now tell me where he is!"

Hiro shook his head again, and Knox growled in rage. With a jerk of his thick-muscled arms, he hurled the time-traveler across the room, where he crashed against his father's safe.

All at once, the door handle turned, and Knox smiled. He leaned up against the wall, out of sight from the doorway. The door opened sharply, and Ando stepped into the room. "Hiro? I thought I heard... Hiro!" He rushed to Hiro's side when he saw his friend lying against the blood-spattered safe.

Hiro tried to motion him away, but he was too slow. Within seconds, Knox had thrown himself across the room and seized Ando around the neck. Ando pulled at Knox's arm, looped tightly around his throat, but his fear fed the lackey's strength. "Now, hero," he said, relishing every word. "Now you're gonna tell me what I want to know. Where is Adam Monroe?" The time-traveler hesitated, and Knox tightened his grip on Ando's neck. "One move and I crush his windpipe," he threatened.

Ando shook his head, a tiny motion but clear enough to Hiro. "No..." he whispered. "Hiro, don't."

Knox's fingers flexed...


	8. Awkward Moment

**A Note From Lara: Sorry it's been awhile since I updated. But here is something for you to sink your Daphter-loving teeth into! It's short, but what can you do?**

**

* * *

**

_Hiro and Ando_

_Yamagato Industries_

"No," Ando whispered. "Hiro, don't!"

Knox's fingers flexed...

"Stop!" Hiro exclaimed. "I will tell you what you want to know. Just let my friend go!"

"I don't think I will," Knox said. "Not until you spill it."

Hiro sighed, then crossed the space between them. He put his hand on Ando's arm. "Adam Monroe is entombed in the cemetery where my parents are buried," he said.

For a split second, Knox's grip relaxed on Ando's throat, and in that moment, Hiro teleported them both as far away as he could fling them...

_Claire_

_Costa Verde_

She had briefly considered taping this, but it seemed childish and silly, like a reminder of the naive teenager she had been only seven months ago. And so Claire was entirely without an audience as she stood with her arms outstretched, waiting for the impact of a speeding freight train.

Or at least, she was at first. Just a few seconds before the impact, a pair of men landed in a heap on the grass a few yards from the tracks. With a yell of surprise, Claire hurled herself out of the path of the train, hurrying over to them. From the way they had just appeared in midair, one of them clearly had a power.

"Are you guys okay?" she asked breathlessly.

The shorter man sat up, pushing a pair of wire-rimmed glasses up his bruised and blood-stained face. "I think so," he said with a heavy Japanese accent. Then, as his companion sat up as well, he raised his eyes to her face. His badly-used face broke into a wide grin. "Cheerleader!" he exclaimed.

Claire glanced down at herself, and was disgusted to realize that she was wearing her cheerleading uniform... again. Forget taping it, _that_ was the most childish thing she could have possibly done. "Yeah, I guess I am," she said with a sigh.

But he shook his head. "No, _Cheerleader_! Claire!"

She started that he knew her name. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I am Hiro Nakamura," he said.

The name registered, and Claire smiled. "Hiro," she said. "Peter mentioned you. You're a time-traveler, right?"

He nodded vigorously, climbing hastily to his feet and dragging his friend up after him. "And this is Ando," he said, gesturing to the taller man.

Ando smiled painfully. "It is a great honor to meet you at last," he said.

"Some honor," she muttered. Then she glanced at them and realized again that they seemed to have beaten up. "Are you guys okay? You look like you've been attacked."

Hiro sighed. "I am afraid we have made a very grave mistake. We must act to stop it, and quickly." He made a motion as if he were about to teleport away again and Claire stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Do you need some patching up?" she asked. "I've got a first aid kit back at my house..."

Hiro hesitated, but Ando jumped in immediately. "Thank you, Cheerleader. We've been very badly beaten, I am afraid."

"Come on then," she said. "It's just a few blocks from here."

_Peter, Matt, and Audrey_

_Highway 121_

They had been driving all day and the sun had sunk behind the hills at their backs by the time Audrey finally decided it was time to pull off for the night. Matt looked sideways at her when she pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6 that seemed dingy-looking even by _that_ standard. She met his eyes with a glare. "Like I said earlier. Budget cuts."

Peter, whose head was filled with thoughts of lice-infested sheets and rooms reeking of cigarettes, hastily muttered, "I think I'll make alternate sleeping arrangements."

Audrey grinned. "And that's the trouble with being a billionaire's son- can't take cheap motels," she said jokingly.

Peter raised his eyebrows at her. "I'm a hospice nurse living barely above the poverty line," he said dryly.

"Good point," she said.

"But I'm still making alternate sleeping arrangements," he continued. "Besides, I could do with stretching my legs after a day in the car. I'll walk around for awhile. I'll meet you guys back here at, say, seven o'clock?" Audrey nodded, and he disappeared in a blur of speed.

Once he was gone, she turned to Matt and asked dryly, "Remind me why we have him with us again?"

Matt shrugged. "Because he's the most powerful person alive, and if we're really dealing with super-people, he'll be useful to have around? And also because he's the one who actually talked to our primary suspect, making him our only witness?"

Audrey nodded, making a face. "Yeah, I guess that's a fairly compelling reason." She marched up to the counter of the rundown motel and confronted the bored-looking receptionist. "We need to book two rooms for the night," she said.

The girl glanced between the two of them and raised her eyebrows- clearly separate rooms wasn't the usual request from clientele of the opposite sex- but didn't comment. She entered something into the computer, paused for a moment, then pulled a pair of room keys out of a drawer and handed them over. "You're in rooms 106 and 108," she said. "There's an adjoining door."

Audrey looked ready to explode at the girl's assumption, but Matt put a placating hand on her arm and she dropped it and settled for glaring daggers at her over her shoulder all the way down the hall. Once they were safely ensconced in Room 106 (which, it transpired, was the less disgusting of the two rooms), which she had claimed as hers, she began muttering invectives under her breath. "The nerve," Matt heard her hiss.

"Uh... something wrong?" he asked in a slightly sarcastic voice.

She shrugged ironically. "Oh, no, of course not. Some idiotic pip of a girl has decided that you and I are having some kind of affair. What could possibly be wrong?"

"Who cares what some random desk clerk thinks?" Matt pointed out consolingly.

Audrey whipped around and fixed him with her patented bulldog glare. "I care!" she exclaimed. "I know I pretend not to, but I care what people think about me just as much as you do, and under no circumstances would I be caught _dead_ sleeping with you!"

It was an unexpected blow to him to hear that. Yeah, he knew he had had some feelings for her in the past, the first time they worked together, and there had been some tense moments between them recently, but he hadn't really thought that much about it until now. But the vehement statement she had made was too painful to him for Matt to deny that he was definitely attracted to Audrey, and probably something more, as well. Fat lot of good it would do him, though.

"Gee, thanks," he muttered sarcastically, and he pulled open the door between their two rooms and hurried through the partitioning wall.

* * *

**Like I said, kinda short chapter. You'll live. There's always Speed of Sound out there if you need your Daphter fix.**


	9. Author's Note

**I can't believe I'm doing this, but... well...**

**The Speedster And The Sponge is officially ON HIATUS.**

**Not CANCELED the way some of my other fics were recently, because I promise that once I get my FanFiction writing cut down to a few stories at a time, I'm going to come back and wrap it up. But for now, I have to concentrate on fics that I'm really inspired for, get them finished, and then come back to the stuff I'm having trouble with. You see, I'm having a minor FF crisis. Between trying to write a novel, get my fanfic updated, and maintain a semblance of a normal life (meaning lots and lots of college applications), I just have no time. And it's starting to really stress me out. Stressing is not something I am used to. As a result, I'm not enjoying it. And as FF is the least important thing on that list of Stuff To Do, unfortunately that's the area that's going to suffer. 'Cause the college apps are going to arrange for my future and the book is going to (hopefully) pay for my future. So that's that. Sorry guys. I promise the rest of my stories will keep going mostly uninterrupted (though I can't promise regular updates).**

**Thanks for your patience, and there's still SOS for the Daphter lovers!**

**(Also- you'll TOTALLY buy my book if it gets published and I tell you about it, right?)**


End file.
